


It's too hot in this room, plus I'm locked out. Can I come sleep in yours?

by roliver4



Series: "Maybe You Don't Write Enough..." [11]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/F, One Shot, One Shot Collection, Short One Shot, Trapped In Elevator
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-18
Updated: 2018-04-18
Packaged: 2019-04-24 14:43:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,729
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14357628
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roliver4/pseuds/roliver4
Summary: Lexa Watkins is a forensic anthropologist from Chandler, Indiana, and she can't fucking sleep.





	It's too hot in this room, plus I'm locked out. Can I come sleep in yours?

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys. I'm at a work conference and I can't sleep, so I'm going to try to write something out. 
> 
> Please excuse typos. Written on my phons.
> 
> Add me on tumblr and let's chitchat: roliver901.tumblr.com

Lexa Watkins is a forensic anthropologist from Chandler, Indiana, and she can't fucking sleep.

If it wasn't the incessant snoring from her work buddy Anya Miller under the sheets of the other bed across the terrible brown and red hotel room in this God forsaken bayou, it was the perpetual 73 degrees that the other woman left the room. It's not like Lexa hadn't tried to change the thermostat 4 times already. No, it was that Anya, in her unusual sleeping habits would awake from her rhythmic snores to readjust it to the scorching pits of hell before returning to the the asylum of her 4 bedsheets and 2 comforters. 

If that wasn't enough, the pounding in her sinuses made a wonderful addition to the symphony of sleeps around her. The bass in Lexa's nasal cavity had begun the day earlier when she stepped out of the wonderful, air-conditioned 2018 Subaru Crosstrek that basically drove itself to Monroe, Louisiana, and had only been getting worse with each mosquito bite and each breath that she took in this swamp-riddled town.

And don't forget the throbbing, pulsating pain in her right foot from where she stubbed her toe at the awards ceremony just hours before. The corner of that wall passed its unforgiving nature into her second toe as blood covered the tip of her totally nonsensible shoes as she clenched her jaw through the remainder of the 2-hour program, 15 minute car ride back, and hour it was before Anya fell asleep knitting a gold and black blanket with the lights on and the news blasting. 

None of this was really fair. Lexa was having a great time. After all, how many times do you get paid to talk about decomposition rates, osteological anomalies, and geographical based morphology while receiving awards for weird categories such as 'most likely to be a superhero in disguise'? Oddly enough, for Lexa, this has become a yearly affair. After being hired on as a forensic analyst at Bluff Ridge six years before, she had accumulated multiple weird awards including 'most likely to have a green thumb' and 'most likely to spend a night in the office'. While the company that she was now the chief operating officer of completely believed in the whole 'all work and no play' motto, they busted their ass to justify opportunities like this. After being contracted out to the FBI three separate times this year to help solve serial murder cases, and after helping obtain a conviction on 12 cold cases, and after clocking over 3,000 hours in the last year, Lexa earned that 'most dedicated' award that had been shoved haphazardly in her luggage, even if it came at the cost of a broken toe.

Sighing deeply, the brunette kicked the blanket off of her body. Slowly but surely, she had been stripping them down through the night, one at a time, until nothing remained but the blanket of heat that engulfed their room. She stared up at the popcorned ceiling above, feeling her leg cramp with the sudden movement of her foot. "Fuck," she groaned her favorite word under her breath as Anya choked on the air filling in from her mouth. The other woman exhaled her snore into the air around her and continued on her semi-normal serenade into the abyss of the darkness that lingered, interrupted only by the light that seeped through the crack in the curtain. Lexa's eyes had adjusted to the darkness... after all, she had been staring at it all night. 

What would it take to get some sleep around here?

She rolled over onto her stomach, sliding her hands under the pillow beneath her cheek. Even the pillow felt like a coal bed in a furnace. 'Fuckkk,' she mumbled again, shifting her weight around before rolling back over onto her back. Pulling her hands over her eyes, Lexa attempted to motivate herself into sleeping. "Tomorrow is going to be hard as fuck," she threatened under her breath, remembering that in just 4 short hours, her alarm would be going off to wake her for 'team building and spirit day'. "Get it together Lexa," she growled at herself, this time a bit louder. Throwing her arms out beside her, the brunette offered herself to the sleep gods, her sacrifice a cross on thick, white linen sheets.

With one last sigh, one more wheeze from her roommate, and the snapping of the frail rope that was tethering her to sanity, Lexa threw her legs over the side of the bed and instantly regretted it. The pain that traveled from her toe into her ankle through her calf and up her body settled in it's new home in her parietal lobe. "Fuck," she groans again, using her upper body strength to push herself off of the bed and over to the dresser where her hoodie rested, neatly folded like all of the woman's clothing. 

If that wasn't an analogy for her life, she didn't know what was.

Dragging herself over to the door, she chuckled slightly at the thought of Anya walking up right now to this sight. That was pretty much an impossibility due to the sheer amount of trazodone that the older woman had eaten like candy just before falling asleep, but if she had awoken, she would probably only see a hunched over figure in a baggy sweatshirt, dragging its foot like Egor behind it. Anya was already struggling with sleeping and coming face to face with Frankenstein's slave in her hotel room probably wouldn't help, but the idea of explaining those screams to hotel security made Lexa smile.

Opening the door slowly, she heard every creak and every squeal of the metal hinge louder than ever before. Before she knew it, Lexa had drug her swollen and blueing foot into the hallway, her body grudgingly following as the door closed behind her. 

And then it hit her.

Like a scene from a movie, the brunette watched the door close in slow motion as her hand reached for the handle in even slower motion. As if the universe mocked her, the latch clicked locked with Lexa on one side of the metal door, and her room card on the other. As if that wasn't bad enough, on the dresser beside her room key was her wallet and plugged into the wall outlet next to her bed was her phone. 

She was stranded on an island of horizontal stitched carpet and mocha covered walls. 

Sighing heavily, she rested her head on the door frame, tapping the door with her index finger before attempting to whisper through the steel device designed solely to keep people out. "Anya?" she spoke, trying to not wake the other residents of the hotel around her. "Anya?" Lexa repeated again after a few taps. "Anya?" She basically shouted, pleading with her passed out roommate, knowing it was to no avail. 

"Fuck," her raspy voice spoke into the brightened hallway around her. At least it was cool out here. There was no sleep walking, trazodone dosed, freight train to turn on the heat in the middle of a Louisiana summer. 

With no phone, no wallet, no key, and no shoes, Lexa began the migration to the lobby, passing countless 'shhhh, I'm sleeping' door hangers and the occasional room service tray waiting to be picked up. She pondered taking the stairs, remembering the unreliability of the elevator ride, but the pulsating of pain in her foot with each step reminded her that the 80 stairs down to the first floor would probably kill her. Mumbling again, the small "fuck," escaped between her lips and danced into the air around her. It was just loud enough to echo between the two walls to her left and right, but seemed to be absorbed by the dark brown carpet below. 

With the press of a button, the orange, glowing square on the metallic plate screwed onto the wall called for the metal box that would carry her down to the lobby, and a new room key. She stepped into the elevator cart, the tile floor sending a chill through her bare feet. The temperature was even kinder in the elevator and Lexa pondered briefly how unacceptable it would be for the C.O.O. of an international forensic society to sleep in the elevator of a 4-star hotel. 

Pushing the little button marked with an L, Lexa leaned against the metal bar behind her, resting her head on the wall to her right and feeling the shift of the car as it began making its descent. With one doing after the next, she counted the floors as she passed them, hearing her voice echo through her head.

7.

6.

5.

4.

But 3 never came. In fact, the car came to a slow stop, jolting slightly as the doors opened and a louder, more aggressive sound joined Lexa in the car, the footsteps of another passenger following close behind. Opening her eyes briefly, Lexa squinted against the bright lights of the elevator to make out a blonde mane against a Jean jacket. The woman was turned against Lexa, her back being the only defining factor of this woman, but the aroma that she brought with her filled Lexa's angry sinuses with hope for a brighter tomorrow. She smelled like citrus, but still possessed a spicy kick that intrigued Lexa. 

'Stop sniffing the girl in the elevator,' the logical portion of her brain criticized Lexa as she closed her eyes again, feeling the doors close and the car begin it's path again. 

But before Lexa could even get comfortable for her 2 floor journey, the elevator came to a jolting stop, a small screech accompanying the sudden halt.

"What the fuck?" The blonde protested, pushing the lobby button repeatedly. Lexa eyeballed the illuminated disk before her as the blonde shifted back to her spot in front of the door. Nothing changed in the environment around her. But there was a hurricane slowly building in her gut. Swallowing deeply, she protested the explosion that was rising in her chest, words forming in her throat quicker than her will to stop them, but before she knew any better, The brunette was pushing past the blonde, clawing at the space between the two metal plates holding her captive. 

"Fuck!" She shouted on a continuous loop, repeating the word as if it had the power to command the car into motion again. "Fuck! Fuck!" Her words became more aggressive the more she separated the doors. But when Lexa opened them, one final, daint, defeated "fuck" was met against a brick wall, the dividing point between the 2nd and 3rd floor. 

"Well, shit," the blonde woman adds in, taking a single step to join Lexa as she faced the brick wall. "I think we're stuck." 

"No shit!" Lexa bit back, turning her head to face the woman for the first time. As Lexa stood their with her basic, brown hair pulled back into a messy ponytail and her oversized hoodie draped around her torso, barefoot in this elevator, she was met with the absolute face of beauty. Even with her eyebrows furrowed and her jaw clenched against Lexa's words, the other woman looked like someone that Lexa needed to know. "I'm sorry," she apologized, something slightly out of character for her. Lexa wasn't normally wrong, but even when she was, she didn't normally apologize. That's what eventually drove Costia away. 

The blonde shrugged, taking two steps back and sliding down the wall to the tile below. With her knees pulled into her chest, she let out a long sigh that turned into a groan, her forehead falling to her knees. Through the curtain of her hair, Lexa could only make out some of the mumbles, but what she did hear was something about missing a date and 'fuck this shit'.

Lexa joined her on the floor, leaning against the opposite corner to face the woman. Her eyes traced every corner of her aura, taking in her frustration and anxiety. "I'm sorry," Lexa repeated, this time not for her own actions, but for the universe's fuckery. She watched as the blonde lifted her head, her bright blue eyes meeting Lexa's for the first time.

A small smile cracked across her face as she exhaled her tension, instantly putting Lexa at ease. What kind of person has this much command of the emotions of others? "It's all good," the blonde said, almost as if trying to convince herself. "I mean, at least we're stuck, right? That means that the brakes on this thing work." With two small pats onto the polished metal, Lexa felt her heart drop at the thought of falling in this shaft

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you high?" She practically shouted at the other woman, her face displaying the absolute terror that rushed through her system. 

"Not high," the blonde snorted, pulling a flask from the pocket of her jacket and giving it a slight shake. "You need to relax." Lexa watched as the woman gently placed the metal flack on the ground below, giving it a push with her black polish covered fingers. It slid with grace, stopping at the corner of Lexa's swollen foot. The brunette glanced up at the other woman, receiving nothing but a smile in return. Taking the container from the floor, she unscrewed the lid, the smell of rum immediately filling the air around her. Even through her building sinus infection, Lexa could smell the cheap desperation of the dark liquid in her hands. Cringing slightly, she threw back a swig, gagging internally at the taste that was even worse than the smell.

"Oh fuck," Lexa grumbled, swallowing down the remains of her broken soul with the aftertaste of death as the blonde woman laughed, sliding her way across the small car. She took up a new seat beside Lexa, taking the flask from her hand with one swift motion that led into her taking her own share.

"See how bad I anticipated this date to go?" The woman chuckled her rum-scented laugh, offering the flask once more to Lexa who denied. "I'm Clarke, by the way" she added, taking another drink before offering her hand awkwardly.

Lexa reached across her body to take the woman's T-Rex arm, giving it one firm shake before introducing herself. "Lexa Watkins," she spoke firmly, a rehearsed introduction that she had practiced numerous times before her promotions. 

Clarke smiled, taking another drink before offering it to Lexa again. "First and last name," she mocked, retracting her offer when Lexa didn't respond. "Fancy." The short that followed her words irritated Lexa more than the snark in her tone. Taking the flask from Clarke, she took another shot, almost as if out of spite. 

"Fuck off," she choked when she finally surfaced for air, struggling with the taste of sour and bitter that waged an angry war against her taste buds.

Clarke laughed lightly again, allowing Lexa to hold onto the flask. "Where were you going?" She asked, her gaze shifting to Lexa. Even with her eyes fixated in front of her, Lexa could feel Clarke's eyes tracing every inch of her disheveled demeanor.

"Clearly on a 4am date," the brunette bit back, taking another drink before offering it back to its owner. Clarke took it with a small hiss, her words delayed through her own drink.

"Yeah," she drew out every letter of that one word, her head falling back to the wall behind her. "I didn't want to meet him, but I was getting stir-crazy in my room."

"Tell me about it," Lexa chucked a reply. "My roommate is apparently trying to smoke meat or fry eggs on our counter tops in mine." Instant regret filled Lexa's gut as she allowed the criticisms to slip. She really did enjoy enjoy Anya, and she was a good roommate. It was just so damn hot in there. 

Clarke laughed, reaching a hand over to pat Lexa's leg. Her touch lingered a bit longer than Lexa expected. And whether it was the alcohol filling her brain or the feeling of Clarke's fingertips against her plaid pajama pants, the world may never know, but in that moment, something filled Lexa with a hopeful optimism. 

This wasn't such a bad experience. 

"Roommates are hard sometimes," Clarke spoke in a near whisper, taking a drink before handing it back to Lexa. "Finish that off," she added as Lexa lifted it to her lips.

With a small smile, Lexa downed the remained of the rum, a shot and a half at most, before screwing the lid back on and handing it to Clarke who pocketed it. "You know," Lexa spoke again, beginning to feel the buzz in her fingertips from the alcohol. Her lips felt slightly larger and her brain began fumbling through words before she could speak them. "It all wouldn't be so bad if this damn swamp didn't have my sinuses so pissed off." She closed her eyes, leaning her head back onto the wall and sniffed intensely. Nothing mattered when it came to sniffing. She was going to be an open-mouth breather until her rental car was on it's way back north.

"Come here," Clarke spoke, moving quickly to slide her body in front of Lexa's. As Lexa leaned forward, the sides of her face were met with the hands of the other woman who began massaging her cheeks. As Clarke ran her thumbs across Lexa's face, she followed the groove of her cheek bones, pushing in and releasing under her eyes and around her nose. Her fingers continued to dance across Lexa's forehead, relaxing the tension that she held in her face as the brunette allowed herself to fall slightly into Clarke's grip.

"Oh my God," Lexa mumbled as Clarke's grip found her shoulders and the back of her neck, digging deeper into all of the stress that she had accumulated from work and life. It was as if Clarke's hands knew all of the perfect places to massage. 

"Better?" Clarke asked a small chuckle, releasing Lexa who fell forward momentarily ar the absence of the other woman's hands before catching herself. 

Before lexa could decide on her answer, the elevator car shifted, the pull of gravity I'll indicating that the car was traveling up floors. Lexa wanted to scream. She wanted to push the panic button and stop the car. But she also wanted out of this screaming metal deathtrap. But mostly, she wanted out of this screaming metal deathtrap with Clarke. 

When the elevator dinged on the third floor and the doors opened, Clarke shifted herself to her feet, Lexa following in suit. "Well, I guess I've already missed my date, so..." her words trailed as she turned towards the open door and towards her floor. "It was nice meeting you Lexa." She took a few steps out before Lexa could respond. 

There were too many words in her head and too many ways that she could, and should, beg Clarke to stay, but Lexa couldn't produce a single audible sound. Instead, she stood there, allowing the door to close between them.

The elevator began its descent, chiming two more times before the doors opened to a hallway and the windows of the empty pool room. The lights from the pool danced across the ceiling as Lexa struggled to find it in her to step out. Again, too many thoughts fought for control of her brain, but one thought screamed the loudest. 

Reaching forward, she pushed the button on the wall, jamming the close door button below multiple times as if that would hurry the car along. With two more chimes, the doors opened again to a hall much like her own- brown carpet, tan walls, blue accents in the stitching and stupid paintings of flowers on the wall, but something about this hall was brighter. 

This hall is where she was staying. 

"Clarke!" Her name preceded her out of the elevator, announcing her arrival as she took a step out. Her bare feet were greeted by the warm carpet and she quickly turned from the right to she left, finally catching sight of the blonde as she was sliding her key card into the door. The other woman took a step back, turning her head to see Lexa. She had a small grin across her lips as she allowed her hand to fall from the door handle. Lexa approached, stopping entirely too close to the blonde. With her eyes fixated on the ground, she swallowed deeply, fighting the word vomit that had filled her mouth. Taking a breath, she finally opened her mouth to speak again, looking up at the other woman. Greeted by those brilliant eyes, Lexa lost all hope of forming complete, coherent sentences. "Look," she began, making Clarke's smile widen. "I mean, I'm locked out and I could just go to the desk and ask for a replacement key..." The rambles continued as Lexa's eyes dropped to the floor. "But that's just a pain in the ass and you're already dressed up..." Lexa attempted to lift her hand to motion towards Clarke, but her limb fell limp to her side. "And I would hate for all of that to go to waste... plus my room is incredibly hot..." 

Clarke laughed gently was she reached out her hands to grip the sides of Lexa's face again, her thumbs tracing circles on the awkward woman's cheeks. The blonde leaned in, lifting Lexa's head to meet her lips with Lexa's as they were still attempting to justify returning to the third floor. 

Lexa stood completely still, the blonde's closed lips against her own until Clarke released her. The other woman smiled softly as Lexa continued to stand, shoeless in the hallway. Sliding her key into the door, Clarke opened it and stepped inside, fighting against the cool breeze that exited into the hallway and wrapped itself around Lexa. Lexa stood there, defeat building inside of her as her head fell. 

But just as she was about to turn, the blonde's gravely voice asked one simple question that completely shifted Lexa's entire mood.

"Are you coming in, or what?"

With a smile widening on her lips, Lexa allowed her bare feet to carry her across the threshold and into Clarke's grasp.


End file.
